


Keep The Quiet Out

by cycling_lane



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Cambridge, Developing Friendships, Developing Romance, F/M, How Sherlock and Molly met, Roommates, Sherlolly - Freeform, Unilock, University, flatmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cycling_lane/pseuds/cycling_lane
Summary: “You’re thinking,” Sherlock says, a long-suffering tone in his voice. “I can hear it and it’s annoying, so stop.”Prequel to the BBC series, in which Sherlock and Molly are flatmates at university. He doesn't think they're friends, but she figures that no good thing ever came easy.Sherlolly





	1. 331D Victoria Road, Cambridge. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bit nervous about this one. Writing Sherlock and Molly pre-series isn't exactly a novelty thing, but it still feels odd to me. Their lives will be discovered through vignettes, sorted by the addresses they live on. 
> 
> First one up? 331D Victoria Road, Cambridge. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy it!

  


 

There is a boy in her flat. 

Molly Hooper looks at the key in her right hand, wondering if it has somehow permitted her entry to the wrong apartment, then looks at the crumbled piece of paper between her left thumb and index finger.

 _331D Victoria Road, Cambridge,_ it reads.

Surely this can’t be it? The university assured her that her off-campus student flat was girls-only. Yet here this boy is: lying on a worn-down sofa, his hands folded under his chin and eyes closed.

Molly doesn’t think he’s sleeping -even if he has yet to notice her entry. There’s too much tension in his long limbs, a pensiveness in the deep frown on his forehead.

She lets go off her suitcase and contemplates what to do. If he wasn’t so handsome, she probably would have announced her presence already, but he _is_ unbelievably good-looking; with high cheek bones and a wild riot of black curls on top of his head, and so she’s at a loss of what to do. Still, she needs to undertake some sort of action and do it quickly, because her father is on his way up with the rest of her luggage and he’ll have a heart-attack if he finds a boy in her flat –especially one that’s dressed in only a sleeping gown.

“Stop it.”

Molly startles, looking down at the boy.

“Stop it,’ he repeats. 

“I- I’m not doing anything?” She says, not sure if he’s talking to her. She looks around the flat, but it doesn’t look like anybody else is there.

“You’re _thinking_ ,” the boy says, a long-suffering tone in his voice. “I can hear it and it’s annoying, so stop.”

 _Right._ Molly feels her cheeks heat up. Fidgeting nervously, she casts one more desperate glance around the room and then looks back to the boy again. _Here goes nothing_.

Taking a step forward, she clears her throat and begins, “I’m-”

“Don’t. It’s much more interesting if I guess.” He opens one eye, regards her for all of two seconds and then closes it again. Molly feels like he has just looked into her soul. “You’re my new flatmate; eighteen –no, nineteen years old; medicine student, which you’re woefully unprepared for by the way; daughter of a single father, who’s poor, uneducated and widowed. Your mother died when you were young, which I’m sure was very traumatic for you. Oh, and you’re still a virgin.” He takes a deep breath, keeping his eyes shut. “I’m Sherlock Holmes, your flatmate. I’d say it was nice to meet you, but I don’t believe in pleasantries.”

Molly blinks owlishly. Her mind is running a mile per minute, but not producing any useful information or things to say.

“H- How do you-”

“How do I know that? Simple.” In one graceful move, he pushes himself upright and stands up from the sofa, towering over her. Even in a blue satin dressing gown he looks intimidating. “You’re poor, judging by your clothing, which is cheap and poorly-made. You also have no sense of style or femininity, wearing no makeup and having a haircut that’s utterly unsuitable for your face shape. You clearly lacked a female role model growing up. Ergo, your mother is dead. Your father tried the best he could, but he didn’t have a lot of time –probably because he worked the nightshift in some factory and slept for the biggest part of the day, trying to earn enough money to buy you those awful clothes.”

Moly feels like he’s kicked her in the stomach, but the stranger ( _Sherlock Holmes,_ her mind supplies) isn’t done yet. On the contrary, it looks like he’s just getting started, talking faster and faster with each passing sentence, moving his hands to point out different parts of her body.

“Even though your father wishes you were a boy instead of a girl, he’s still proud of you,” he continues. “You look bright, but not bright enough for a scholarship, which means that he’s spending all of his own money to send you to Cambridge. He’s possibly had to sell the house you grew up in. He would only do that if he was immensely proud of you, hence you’re doing something prestigious. It must be medicine –fuelled by your desire to cure whatever disease your mother died of. Cancer, most likely.” He says it in such a flippant way that she almost wants to smack him. “You’re not prepared to be a medicine student because you haven’t got what it takes –you’re not assertive enough, you’re a wall-flower, a push-over. Medicine students are killers. They’ll crawl over dead bodies to get where they want to be –which, _huh,_ there’s some sort of comedic value in there somewhere.”

Molly doesn’t laugh.

He doesn’t notice.

“Finally, you’re a virgin for two reasons,” He continues instead, raising two fingers. “One, you have the same amount of sexual appeal as a dead mouse. Two, you were obviously shocked to find a male in your student housing, which means you’ve specifically asked for a female flatmate. You would only have done that if: a) you were a virgin, or b) you were a lesbian. And to be honest, you seem pretty heterosexual to me. You clearly find me attractive.”

Molly’s head is spinning. “I- You… How? I…”

“Please keep your mouth closed while you think of what to say,” Sherlock tells her, sinking back down on the sofa. “You look like a goldfish. It’s very unbecoming.”

Her cheeks feel like they’re on fire. There’s a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. _Humiliation_ , Molly thinks. Tears pool in her eyes, but she stubbornly blinks them away. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. This isn’t the first time she’s encountered a bully and it certainly won’t be the last.

Eventually, after what must have been at least thirty seconds, she opens her mouth again. “My name is Molly Hooper,” she introduces herself. “In case you were wondering.”

Sherlock waves her words away, his eyes closed again. “Names are unimportant,” he says. “I’d much rather know how I did.”

“Did what?” She asks, and curses her voice for trembling.

“Deduce you, of course. How much of what I just said was accurate?”

Molly looks at him for a few moments, trying to decide if he’s serious or not. He is, she decides. Her stomach twists itself into knots, and she plays with a loose tread on her jumper. “About eighty percent.”

He frowns at that. “Just eighty?”

The confusion in his voice makes Molly feel marginally better.

“Yes.” She says. “I _do_ have a scholarship. And my Mum didn’t die of cancer. She died in labour, exactly ten minutes before the doctors saved me by emergency C-section.”

It’s something that she has never told anybody, but somehow the words have left her mouth before she knows it.

Sherlock doesn’t appear fazed. He simply folds his hands back under his chin and gets comfortable.

“Ah,” he mutters, as if everything suddenly makes sense. “So _that’s_ why your relationship with your father has always been strained.”

Molly feels nauseated. She whirls around and stalks to the front door, ready to go downstairs and tell her father not to bother with the boxes. She’s not going to share a flat with this… this _monster._

Sherlock’s next words stop her in her tracks.

“You want to become a gynaecologist.”

For a second she thinks that he sounds more gentle, that there’s a soft undertone to his voice, but she quickly dismisses the thought. She’s only known this young man for two minutes, but she already realises that _gentle_ isn’t part of his vocabulary.

“It’s understandable, I suppose,” he says. “I’m not good with emotions, but I do comprehend that you’d think it’s a good way to deal with the trauma of your childhood. It’s not, though. It will only make you unhappy.”

“And you _do_ know what will make me happy?” She asks bitterly, feeling her arms and legs shake with anger. Tears prick behind her eyes.

When looks at him over her shoulder, Sherlock is back in the exact same position that he was in when she entered the flat. He doesn’t answer.

Molly grabs her suitcase and walks out, not looking back.

 

+++

 

“I’m sorry, dear,” the lady at the University Housing Administration says. “But we haven’t got any other student accommodation available at this moment. You could try again next term, but for now the flat on Victoria Road is all we have.”

Molly thanks her and goes back outside, where her father is waiting in his beat-up Volvo.

“Where to, Molls?” He asks, when she sinks into the passenger seat.

She sighs, pushing a strand of hair away from her face. “331D Victoria Road,” she mutters. “Same place we just came from.”

As her father pulls back into traffic, Molly makes herself a promise. She may have to live with him, but she won’t let Sherlock Holmes bother her. He isn’t going to ruin her Cambridge-experience.

 

+++ 

 

Sherlock is ruining her Cambridge-experience.

“Wait –you’re talking about Sherlock? Sherlock _Holmes_?” Catherine, the first and only friend that Molly has made during her first week of classes, frowns when Molly can’t stop complaining about her eccentric flatmate. Somehow she’s never mentioned his name before, not until today. “Tall, dark hair, unbelievably smart? Enormous prat?”

Molly nods.

“Poor you,” is the only thing Cat says. 

It doesn’t take long for Molly to find out that Sherlock has somewhat of a reputation on campus.

Poor her, indeed. 

 

 


	2. 331D Victoria Road, Cambridge. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and kudos! I hope you'll enjoy this second installment just as much as you liked the first one.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/155872438@N08/35429570090/in/dateposted-public/)

Medical school is _hard._ Molly has always known that, but she also used to believe she had what it takes. Until now.

She stares at her study book until she goes cross-eyed and the tiny words on the page in front of her start to blur. She blinks rapidly, trying to clear her vision. After a few more minutes, she gives up and lets her head fall against the library table.

 _Maybe Sherlock was right,_ a voice whispers in her head. _Maybe you aren’t good enough._

“That’s not very hygienic.” He says behind her. 

She turns around so quickly she almost falls out of her chair.

Sherlock isn’t looking at her. Instead, he is staring at the table like it has personally offended him. “People do the vilest things in libraries.”

“Wh- What are you doing here?” Molly stammers, which she quickly realises isn’t the most brilliant question she could have asked.

He rolls his eyes. “I _do_ study here, you know.”

And she does, of course, but it’s easy to forget. Her flatmate always seems so mature, so cultured and intelligent that she has trouble thinking of him as a university student, attending lectures and writing papers just like everybody else. Besides, she never sees him on campus. Not that she ever sees him at home, either. Their schedules are like day and night.

“What do you study?” Molly asks curiously, on a whim of confidence.

(He’s the one who approached her, after all. He’s the one who started the conversation this time around. They’ve been living together for nearly an entire month and that’s never happened before.)

Sherlock seems taken-aback. “Why do you ask?”

She shrugs. “We’re flatmates. We live together, but I barely know you.”

He watches her warily, in that way he does when it seems like he doesn’t quite understand something. For a minute Molly is afraid that he’ll scoff and roll his eyes, but he surprises her by actually answering.

“I study Natural Science,” he says, not without pride.

Molly gapes at him. It’s an impressive field of study; a unique combination of different science branches, like physics, chemistry, biology, geology and pathology, that is only taught at Cambridge. It’s a notoriously difficult degree to obtain, to say the least, but when she thinks about it, it’s also the only thing she can actually imagine Sherlock Holmes doing.

“That’s impressive,” she tells him.

Sherlock blinks at her compliment, but quickly lifts his chin again. “Thank you,” he says primly. “Medicine is not without its challenges either.”

Molly feels her mouth quirk up.

 _See?_ She asks herself excitedly. _Maybe he’s not as bad as-_

“For a goldfish, I mean.”

She gets the inexplicable urge to bang his head against the library table. And that’s odd –seeing as Molly Hooper isn’t usually a violent person.

 

+++

 

She doesn’t dare to eat at their kitchen table. Even though Sherlock insists that he disinfects it regularly (which she highly doubts is true), she can’t help but wrinkle her nose at his test tubes whenever he brings them out.

Six weeks after she moves in, she undertakes action. Armed with a roll of neon-yellow scotch tape, she divides the table in two equal halves. One for him, one for her. His side nearly bulges under the weight of his microscope and is perpetually covered by hastily scribbled sticky notes and dog-eared chemistry journals. There are Petri dishes and cotton buds covered in things that Molly prefers not to think about. Her own side is a happy riot of medical books, brightly-coloured pens and tattered notebooks.

Cat comes by on a Tuesday night and just shakes her head.

“I know you hate the twat,” she says, “but this almost makes it look as though you’re perfect for each other.”

 

+++

 

“We need bleach,” Molly announces one day.

It’s one of those rare moments when they’re home (and awake) at the same time, and she decides to make use of it. Even though the yellow tape on their table has improved things, co-habiting with Sherlock Holmes still isn’t perfect.

Molly’s been gathering courage to talk to him about the mess he makes in the kitchen for weeks, but the current state of their countertops has finally pushed her over the edge. The amount of chemical waste in their sink makes her want to weep.

Sherlock looks up from his microscope. “Beg your pardon?”

“Bleach,” Molly repeats. “We need it.”

“Whatever for?”

“Have you seen our sink?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

 

+++

 

And that is how they end up at Sainsbury’s (because Sherlock refused to step foot into Asda, the obnoxious upper-class twat). Molly navigates the aisles with practiced ease, him trailing behind her like a reluctant toddler.

She quickly finds a bottle of bleach and stops by the fruit aisle to get some peaches, before making her way to the till. It’s then that she notices Pippa from her Anatomy I class. Her blonde curls are luminous even under the shop’s fluorescent lighting, her perfect, pretty face unblemished and bronzed.

“Margaret!” She exclaims with a false cheer, like everyone has a long, traditional name that can be shortened into something ‘hip’, like Pippa. “You never told me you had a boyfriend, you cheeky!”

 _That’s because we never talk,_ Molly thinks bitterly. Out loud she says: “Oh, no, this isn’t my boyfriend. This is my-” 

All of a sudden, she doesn’t know how to continue. Because what _is_ Sherlock Holmes? Her ‘flatmate’ would be the factual term, although that seems too distant and cold and… _supercilious,_ almost. And ‘acquaintance’ is plain weird. As for her ‘friend’… 

Well, they’re not exactly friends.

_Are they?_

“...my Sherlock,” she decides on eventually, wincing slightly. Her cheeks heat up. “Sherlock, this is Pippa.”

The blonde extends a perfectly manicured hand, her blue eyes shining with excitement. “Sherlock _Holmes_?” She asks. Her eyelashes are fluttering in a way that makes Molly decidedly uncomfortable. “I believe my family’s estate is in the same county as yours. Pippa Appleworth-Findlay. Pleasure.”

Sherlock regards her hand, raises one eyebrow and (most importantly of all) doesn’t say anything in return.

Molly doesn’t know whether to be relieved or flustered.

For her part, Pippa merely drops her hand and forces a charming smile –generations of good breeding practically oozing out of every pore. “Well,” she says brightly, after a couple of seconds. “This was lovely. I’ll see you in class, Margaret.”

“Molly,” Molly corrects her, but the blonde is already gone.

Suddenly weary to the bone, Molly can’t wait to get out of Sainsbury’s. She expects Sherlock to unleash a sharp, acid deduction straight away, but he surprises her by remaining quiet.

They’re halfway to their flat when he finally speaks up.  

“There is certainly no love lost between the two of you.”

Molly lets out a big sigh. “Between me and Pippa, you mean? No, I suppose there isn’t.”

“Why?”

The question is so unexpected that she stumbles over her own feet and almost drops the bottle of bleach on the sidewalk. The bag of peaches swings precariously from her right hand.

“I- I don’t now,” she stammers.

Sherlock snorts.

“Okay, fine.” He really wants to know? Then she’ll tell him. “I dislike her because she’s a spoiled brat who’s never had to work for anything in her entire life, and who looks down on people who do.”

“Surely she isn’t that bad,” he offers. “A bit vain, perhaps. Definitely desperate for attention –probably because her father-“

“I don’t want to hear your deductions.”

Sherlock stops dead in his tracks.

Molly’s eyes widen comically and she hastily spins around to face him. It’s the first time she’s snapped at him, even though he’s tested her patience plenty of times before. It’s one of the few times she’s snapped at someone, period.

She feels a wave of guilt wash over her, ice-cold against the hot thrum of anger in her veins.

“I-” An apology lies on the tip of her tongue, but she swallows it at the last possible minute.

She won’t apologise.

_Well, that’s a first._

Sherlock merely raises one eyebrow, regards her for a couple of seconds and then starts walking again.

Is it just her, or is that approval she sees flashing in his eyes.

Molly shakes her head to clear her thoughts, quickly catching up with him. His strides are long and fast, but it somehow feels as though he’s shortened them to match hers. Something hangs in the air between them. It’s not tension, not anger or indignation… It’s something much more complex, something that feels akin to understanding but probably isn’t.

“I don’t think she kills small animals in her spare time,” Molly mutters eventually, referring back to Pippa. Her skin feels too tight and she wants to fill the quiet between them. She fears that if she doesn’t, she’ll apologise after all. And something tells her that Sherlock won’t like that. “But that doesn’t necessarily make her a good person. And I’m not less than her, just because I’m at Cambridge on a scholarship. Stupid posh people-“ Realisation dawns upon her. “Bugger, I’m so-.”

Sherlock shakes her head. “Don’t.”

She snaps her mouth shut.

 _Idiot,_ a little voice inside her head whispers. _So much for not apologising._

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she says quickly. He’s studying her sideways, his blue eyes flicking from her face to the groceries in her arms and causing her to blush again.

“Am I a stupid posh person to you?”

“No… I mean, yes. I mean-“ Molly clears her throat oncomfortably. What a mess she’s gotten herself in. She’s never forcing Sherlock to go to the shops with her ever again. “Obviously you’re not stupid.”

He rolls his eyes.

“But, I mean, you _are_ posh. Like Pippa just said, your family has an estate. And your name obviously carries some weight to it. They say that your brother is the youngest head of MI6 ever and that your aunt is somehow related to the queen.”

“MI6?” Sherlock repeats, sounding disbelieving. “ _MI6?_ Why on earth would Mycroft be wasting his time at MI6, of all places?”

 _Why couldn’t your parents just pick normal baby names?_ Molly thinks, immediately feeling guilty. “So your aunt _is_ related to the queen?” She asks, keeping her voice light and airy.

He waves her question away like he tends to do with things that he doesn’t consider important or worth his time. “ _MI6?”_ he mutters under his breath, increasingly incredulous but also slightly amused. “Ha! Wait until Mycroft hears _that_!”

She shakes her head. She’s never met anybody who would consider MI6 unworthy of their time. Have they never watched James Bond?

 

+++

 

Sherlock doesn’t contradict or comfort her. He doesn’t tell her that she _is_ worth just as much as Pippa or his potentially-royal aunt. Molly doesn’t expect him to. It would be unnatural and (quite honestly) incredibly awkward.

Instead, he drops a big, heavy book on her side of the kitchen table one morning, as he nonchalantly makes his way over to the coffee maker. It’s an old tome that has obviously been well loved, with yellowed pages and dog-eared corners.

“What is it?” She asks curiously.

Sherlock simply shrugs. “Oh, just something I had lying around. It’s about blood transfusions. Quite outdated, of course, but I figured you might like it.”

It’s not until Molly opens the book that she realises it’s a first edition bundle of James Bundell’s research papers. He was a British obstetrician whose experiments with blood transfusions revolutionised medicine in the nineteenth century. It must be a priceless piece of literature, and Molly highly doubts that he ‘just had it lying around’.

But when she opens her mouth to thank him, Sherlock has already gone back to his bedroom.

That’s okay, though. Molly realises what this is.

It’s his way of showing her that Cambridge is exactly where she deserves to be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment or write me something on [tumblr](https://cycling-lane.tumblr.com) -I don't bite, promise! 
> 
> Have a lovely day!
> 
> -A


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